September 14th, 2024

Bi-Weekly Newsletter

Ames Plantation, Tennessee

The Ames Plantation is in Grand Junction, Tennessee. Hobart C. Ames, then principal owner of the Ames Shovel and Tool Company, purchased the already standing property in 1901. Clark Moorman had acquired the property in 1824, and his widow Easther Alexander Moorman initially built a large log home on the site. The original portion of what is now known as the Ames Manor House was finished in 1847 and constructed by her son-in-law John Walker Jones.

Ames Manor. Hobart Ames enlarged and updated the original home.

The Plantation became connected to the National Field Trial Championships when the event was held near Grand Junction in 1900. Ames became interested in the event and went on to serve as president of the Association for 45 years, annually hosting the bird dog championship. He held strong views on what qualities a top bird dog should have.
Typically, the Hobart Ames family would spend about four months a year at the Plantation. Arriving in a private railway car, they were met by Plantation servants and driven to the Big House in a six-passenger surrey. Additionally, the plantation was known for its purebred Angus herd. Ames Plantation Beau won Grand Champion at the 1917 International Livestock Expedition in Chicago. Cotton was also grown on the Plantation. Today corn, wheat, soy, sorghum, and cotton are grown as the Plantation continues to be a working farm.

The Angus herd

Stable for the Angus Cattle, Hobart Ames’s pride & joy.

It was at Ames Plantation that Mr. Hobart Ames died in 1945. Prior to her death in 1950, Mrs. Julia Ames took action to ensure that the National Bird Dog Competition would continue to occur on the property and arranged with the University of Tennessee for the 18,600 acres to be operated by the Hobart Ames Foundation for the benefit of the University. “Thus, Ames Plantation became the largest land resource research facility in the state and is unique in that almost all the operational capital improvement funds are generated by the Foundation without expense to the taxpayers of the State of Tennessee.” (Ames Plantation brochure.)

Anne Wooster Drury
[email protected]

Sources
Ames Plantation, https://www.amesplantation.org/the-plantation
Brochure, Ames Plantation